Rules for the Motherless Daughter: One
March 6, 2007
In talking to Jason, I realize how much he wants to protect his daughters, how much he strives to do it right, to be there, to never let them down.
You can try dude, but believe me, you won t win them all. We learn our best lessons the wrong way. (As evidenced by how I learned to just put the icky ice cream down the sick, instead of sneaking the mocha crap out the back door, running my calf directly into a very large, pointy piece of glass. No sympathy from my Dad either, as the blood pooled around my feet) Sometimes, you need to allow people enough rope to hang themselves, so long as you hold onto it with them unaware.
I think of Jason s daughter as someone going where I went, doing what I did, crying the same tears and wanting the same things-her MOM! I see her bright eyes and apple round cheeks and think-I was so young, and yet so old at that age, wasn t I? So much seen oh too soon.
But it made me who I am, what I am. So I do not regret it. Would I change it? Hell YES! But I do not regret what I can t change.
So I wanted to sit down and write out what I consider to be rules for us, for girls without their mothers, without their guides. In our family, some things went right, others, not so much. We did what we could. You can t ask for much more than that when everyone feels so dead inside.
Rule number one?
Do not erase the mother.
We didn t talk about it. We didn t mention it, hardly ever. It was rare that I could express anything out loud to anyone about my mother. It took years before I could do it, before I felt that anyone was listening. Everyone at my house was far too wounded, and struggling with their own pain. I kept it locked tightly inside, ready to spring when allowed.
Many drunken nights later, it would come out at the worst times-when I d sit in the middle of the street, waiting for traffic, when I d throw myself into a friends drumset, hoping something would hurt me, when it didn t, I d start bashing my head on the cement floor. Drunk enough to not feel some pain, I d try to cure the other.
Once I tried to kill myself. I couldn t pin point why, but I didn t want to be alive.
I felt isolated and alone with my grief. I felt that I didn t have the right to talk about it, to work though it, to feel it. I was supposed to suck it up, and deal with it.
I was just a kid.
My school even toed the party line, pretending like nothing had happened for the most part, assuming that I didn t need to talk about it after a year or two had passed.
She was erased. It was like she ceased to exist.
Talk about her. Tell stories. Remind your daughter who her mother was, and what she wanted for her. Your daughter wants to know who she came from.
So tell her.
Also Posted at my home site:
March 8th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Dear Thordora,
I saw myself in your post so clearly. Thank you! No one talked about my mom after she died. It was so strange, I think they were trying not to upset us, but I think doing that ended up making our mother a taboo subject. As a child, I unknowingly grasped at any opportunity to talk about her to whoever would listen. I remember one poor teachers assistant who unwittingly opened the floodgates when she asked me to write a short paper about my life. She, not knowing that I had lost my mother in a car accident less than a year before, ended up discussing a one page story about the death of my mom with me, a devastated 9 year old who, until that moment, had not talked about her mothers death with another living soul. I cried as I talked to her for over an hour. It was a blessing for me, but today, I wonder how it affected her.
Becky
March 21st, 2007 at 1:52 am
No matter how hard anyone tries - it is impossible to erase the past. There are times when I wish I could - but that would be to deny me, in a way. As flawed as I am - I’m rather proud of the person I’ve become. I’m so sorry you lost your mom like that, my dear. We have all been damaged in one way or another. Loss leaves such an emptiness. I still feel like there is a huge hole in my soul. Sometimes that hole seems as vast as the grand canyon. So I can relate, my friend.
July 3rd, 2007 at 2:53 am
After my mom died and I had to go live with my dad and his new family, nobody ever mentioned my mother. It was like she never existed. They totally erased her.